


Both Sides Now

by Jennifer-Oksana (JenniferOksana)



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Betrayal, Cylon Laura, Cylons, F/M, Laura-centric, Mind Games, Self-Indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-06-10 08:51:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6949372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenniferOksana/pseuds/Jennifer-Oksana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The third day after the betrayal from both sides.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Both Sides Now

  
_I've looked at love from both sides now_  
From give and take, and still somehow  
It's love's illusions I recall

He was there the third day after the betrayal. Rumors had run so rampant that Baltar was unable to keep track of them all. The only thing they all agreed upon was that President Roslin was _the_ Cylon, and Admiral Adama, when given a chance to shoot her down, let her escape instead.

So Baltar woke from a nap to see the man himself standing there, and could not, for a moment, think of a thing to say.

"Well, well, well, Admiral Adama," Baltar said, actually not smirking. "I tried to think of something to express my feelings about the news, but I got stuck on the fact that I've been as badly played as you. _Are you a Cylon,_ Doctor Baltar, indeed."

Adama looked as though he were made of stone and silently signaled a guard for a chair. Baltar sighed.

"We are quite frakked, aren't we?" he said plaintively.

"We are," Adama said expressionlessly. "I've come to ask you for help, Doctor."

Baltar choked. "Me?"

"For better or worse, you're our Cylon expert and between your populist views and the tortures you've suffered at the hands of...and the tortures you've suffered, you can calm the people. And I'll back you on that," Adama said, the words clearly gall in his mouth.

Because he was a genius, and had learned a few things from the woman who was currently gearing up to destroy them, Baltar looked at Adama's hand. No rings. No rings at all.

"I've heard some rumors," Baltar said carefully, thinking of what he'd been told. "Was she actually pregnant or was that rubbish?"

Adama rubbed his hand over his face. "I don't know," he said. "Claimed to be."

"Admiral," Baltar said. "We have a crisis on our hands. If I'm going to be able to help, you're going to have to say 'she' or 'it' or something to talk about Laura."

"Fine," Adama said. "Not her name. I don't want to hear that name ever again."

"All right," Baltar said. "Let's go on the assumption she is -- she didn't take Hera Agathon with her, did she?"

"No," Adama said. "Why would she?"

Because she'd stolen her before, Gaius thought to himself. What did he think?

"Because Hera Agathon is the shape of things to come. Unless she's found her own candidate," Baltar said, standing up to pace. "Gods. We're frakked."

He paused. "She loves him, Gaius," Six whispered in his ear. "If she's truly carrying the man's child, she must love him. It's the one weakness in her plan, the one weakness she's ever allowed herself."

"Doctor," the Admiral said.

"Cylons don't conceive without love," Baltar said. "I believe she must love you strongly, first to have left you alive, and second, to carry your child, given all the potential drawbacks. There's an opening there."

Adama nodded blankly, and Baltar felt pity for the man. To discover that the woman he loved, the woman who had loved him enough to start a family with him anew had played him like a fiddle? It would break any man, without the insult of coming to a known enemy to beg for help.

"Or she left me alive because she knew I'd be unable to command and unable to fire against her," Adama said dully. "Especially if..."

He didn't have to say it. If she loved him, he loved her a hundred times more, and a man like this could not fire on his woman and his child. Baltar nodded.

"That may be true," he said. "But I seriously doubt she'd expect you to come to me this early in the game, Admiral."

"No, that's true," Adama agreed with a bitter smile. "You're another weak point of our enemy's."

Baltar nodded and thought of the look on Caprica's face when she died again for him. "They're not as hard to love as one might think," he said, and then winced. That was the last thing Adama would hear from him.

But instead there was silence. "She asked me to go with her," Adama said. "And gods help me, I almost said yes."

* * *

_But now it's just another show_  
You leave 'em laughing when you go  
And if you care, don't let them know

They'd been waiting, as stunned to see her and know they'd been waiting for her as to hear, "The Six who calls herself Caprica. Whenever she's downloaded, bring her to me. There are quarters, aren't there?"

Whereupon Laura Roslin, first of her people, brushed past the other models staring at her as though she had two heads, walked to the room she'd had waiting, and locked the door.

And promptly burst into tears.

Frakking humans. Frakking BILL. That was not how it was supposed to have gone. Laura had a PLAN, she was the best at this, she had spent nine years with the dirty frakking bastards to be upset by a crater-faced, barrel-gut of a man who couldn't even shoot a frakking traitor to his entire species in the head. If he'd just bedded her when she'd put on that damn red dress instead of being so...hangdog and lovey-dovey and HONORABLE.

There was a knock on the door, and Laura wiped her eyes, took three deep breaths and opened the door. If it wasn't Caprica, she was going to airlock the idiot for intruding to make herself feel better.

"So airlocking isn't too good for me, but it is for you?" Caprica asked sourly. "What do you want?"

"One or two things. First..." Laura took a deep breath and backhanded Caprica, sending her sprawling to the floor. "That's for betraying one of your own for one of them."

"Oh, that was human of you," Caprica said, looking up and wiping the blood from her mouth casually.

"You frakked my plan for that idiot weasel who blew up his own civilization and doesn't even love you," Laura snapped. "You're lucky I don't have you boxed."

"Why didn't you just download? You can't fly. It must have been hellish," Caprica said, still defiant. "Or are you too good to die?"

And to Laura's complete and utter lack of surprise, Caprica pulled a knife out.

"I'm perfectly willing to download under most circumstances," Laura said. "However, I don't think the baby would survive, so I'd prefer not."

Caprica stared at her, the blood draining from her face. "God damn you," she whispered, the knife falling from nerveless fingers. "That, too? And you didn't stay? You didn't..."

She started to cry, racking sobs that cut Laura's already frayed nerves to the quick. This wouldn't do at all. She walked over to the blonde woman and awkwardly put her hand on Caprica's shoulder.

"Get away from me," Caprica said dully, not moving.

"God has a plan for us all," Laura whispered. "And you're closer to it than you know."

"How's that?" Caprica asked, shaking. "How can you be...that? You're too old. More importantly, you don't love anyone. I saw it before. There's nothing in there except your little plans and schemes. If you loved him, you would have stayed."

Laura put her hand on Caprica's mouth, and it was neither motherly nor sisterly nor precisely the act of a lover. It was something that promised completion...later.

"I asked him to come with me," Laura said with a whimpery little laugh. "God help me, I got on my knees with his gun pressed to my head, and I begged him to come. And he wouldn't -- because he didn't love me enough."

Caprica moved Laura's hand off her mouth and smiled, world-weary. "He loved you. It just doesn't work like that," she said. "Even for you."

"Doesn't it?" Laura asked, raising an eyebrow. "I made him love me. I'll make you love me, too."

And with that, Caprica put her hand on Laura's stomach and smiled knowingly. As if she knew something Laura didn't about love and about Bill and about what was coming.

Which Laura knew. And didn't like. But that would be why she was going to make the girl love her.

So she could.


End file.
